Historian Robert Dallek: "Bush will likely sink on Nov. 2"

[demzilla]

Noted historian Robert Dallek provides some context on the current election, and argues that Americans will take out the trash next week:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/usatoday/20041026/cm_usatoday/historywilldirectbushsfate

"If voters pay as close attention to a president's record as I think they do, Bush will likely sink on Nov. 2. Like Taft, Bush is vulnerable to charges of being in the pockets of corporate interests. Like Hoover, he has presided over an administration that has lost jobs. Not since the Great Depression has any other president had to run on a record of shrinking rather than expanding employment. However mindful he has been about the economic causes of his father's defeat, Bush does not seem well positioned to avoid his father's political fate.

"Like Ford, who unrealistically denied Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and Carter, who could not manage to rescue American hostages from Tehran or control rising oil prices, Bush's blundering policy in Iraq, alienation of so many other governments and peoples around the globe, and uncertain formula for dealing with terrorists raise doubts about his stewardship of foreign policy, which can work to deny him a second term.

"That a president with so questionable a record is still running a competitive race is a little startling. If Bush wins the election, it would seem to represent the triumph of spin politics.

"But past elections would suggest that the electorate will reject his imperfect leadership and make him the sixth incumbent since 1908 to serve only one term."

[BootinUp]

1. This is great

I love it when actual professional historians assess the shrub.

[RafterMan]

2. You Forgot Johnson!

How could he skip over LBJ and his shitty little war?

Other than that, it's a good job of showing how Bush combines the worst elements of the worst presidents, all in one handy package.

[WI_DEM]

4. because Johnson didn't seek re-election in 1968

he was talking about presidents who were defeated at the polls. Johnson had been elected by a landslide in '64 and then decided not to run for another full term in '68.

[indigobusiness]

3. Hoohah....

I love the smell of historical perspective in the morning.

[skrunch]

5. Don't forget this historical paradigm either

One And Done by Terence Samuel
The American Prospect

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8685

(I)f Kerry wins, it may be largely because George W. Bush confronts history and gets swallowed up. Presidents who lose the popular vote do not serve a second term. And that, more than any other reason, could be why Kerry stands on the west front of the Capitol in midwinter pledging to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Americans, who have a highly self-regarding view on their electoral system, don’t like funky elections. And, for our purposes, funky can be defined as any election that gets decided by a court, commission, or the House of Representatives.

Since the inception of popular-vote tallies for presidential elections in 1824, four men have become president without winning the popular vote. The first three served a single term. George W. Bush is the fourth. And though more than a century has passed since the last funky election, there is an argument to be made that the essential character of the American electorate has not changed. Yes, African Americans and women can vote when they could not in 1888. Today there are polls and focus groups, targeting and segmentation, television ads and direct mail that confound and confuse the process, but we are at least as convinced today as we were then that we have invented the best political system in the history of mankind -- and that its real power lies in the voice of the engaged citizen. To have the dictates of that voice contravened or somehow transmuted offends a certain fairness that lies at the heart of the American myth.

And that, ultimately, is what Bush is up against.

<snip>

Another 100 years go by. The Supreme Court says stop counting the votes in Florida, and George W. Bush becomes the 43rd president on the strength of a 537-vote margin in that funky election.

Four years later, the Twin Towers are gone, Saddam Hussein is in jail, Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush seeks to persuade the American people to do what they have never done before: re-elect a president who lost the popular vote. If he wins, the reasons will be obvious. If he loses, my top three reasons will be Adams, Hayes, and Harrison -- all one-term Republicans who won fewer votes than their rivals

[Supersedeas]

6. Triumph of Spin Politics.....like Triumph of the Will

has Lenny been revived at CNN et al.

[helpisontheway]

7. Hope he is right about Bush losing!

[lakeguy]

8. rate it!

kerry landslide!

[Cha]

9. Yeah, "spin politics" has been very

strong these last four years but I predict the People will rise up and SQUASH THEM LIKE THE NASTY BUGS THEY ARE!

[opihimoimoi]

10. TOASTTTTTTTTT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!!!